Freedom
by RedRubyStorm
Summary: Sweet Pea escaped, only with Baby Doll's help. Now it's Sweet Pea's turn to get Baby Doll back. T for language.
1. Chapter 1

**Not a long chapter, we'll just consider it a prologue. I never intended to post this to fanfiction, but I asked to get the listing there, so posting it is. Sweet Pea's point of view, by the way.**

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><p>I took a deep breath. I'd seen the news. Seen what they'd done to Baby Doll. She hadn't done anything that should have landed her in that place - the Lennox House. All she'd been trying to do was protect her sister. Believe me, I know a lot about that front. And then they'd performed a lobotomy on her, forging Gorski's signature for it. It had all been her step-dad and Blue. Baby Doll was gone, but I wasn't quite ready to accept that fact. Not after losing Rocket, Amber, and Blondie too. I'd told my mother what Rocket had said. She kicked me out. Now I was going back to the only person I had left - Baby Doll.<p>

I wasn't sure what the Lennox House would do when I suddenly popped back in. I knew I sure as hell wasn't going to get captured in there again. I had everyone's favorite weapon with me already - a switchblade. I don't know exactly what I was going to do, but I'd been trained by our instructor, or the handy bus driver, whatever you want to call him. I could now enter our other reality at will, when I was awake. I always go there when I'm asleep. When you're asleep you don't have the focus you need to keep yourself from slipping back.

I was going to get Baby Doll. That I was sure of.


	2. Chapter 2

**This chap's longer. I think. Maybe. **

**James888: Seriously? That's amazing. xD Uh... I asked, like, a week after I saw the movie if we could get it on fanfic, and... last week? I got a response saying "Done." So, yeah, it's here.**

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><p>I won't bother describing the bus ride to you. It was rather boring, but it did give me time to come up with some sort of plan if they decided they wanted me back.<p>

Then all of a sudden I was there, staring about at the house that had held me prisoner for so many years, the house that caused all the pain in my life The Lennox house, Brattleboro, Vermont. I wondered why I had wanted to come back. Maybe I did actually belong there.

No. I was coming back for Baby Doll. I still had the key she had given me so long ago. If all went well, I could sneak in there, get Baby Doll away, and get out, unnoticed. The thing was, I wasn't exactly sure how much of Baby Doll was actually left, if any. Maybe she was in our other reality. If I couldn't reach her from there, I was screwed. If I couldn't reach her from there, she really was gone.

I wasn't considering that option too carefully yet.

Taking a deep breath, I opened the door.

One hand on the switchblade tucked in my pocket, I looked for guards. The one at the door was reading a magazine. The armed guards that inhabited the place while I'd been there were nowhere to be seen. Maybe Gorski had managed to change the place.

I'd heard Blue got locked up in a mental facility himself. I didn't think that was enough punishment for what he'd done - killing Amber, Blondie, and Rocket, and cutting out part of Baby Doll's brain- but I also didn't want to stoop to his level and shoot him. Let him suffer through at least half of what he'd done to us before we shot him or cut him up. But Baby Doll would have to be with me for that, at least.

I crouched along, unnoticed by the guard at the door. The key I'd been given at what seemed like an eternity ago still fit the doors. I grinned to myself. Suckers. Silently opening the door, I slipped through, hand on knife, prepared for shots to ring out, hear bullets popping the walls behind me.

Nothing. I couldn't figure it out. I'd seen nobody but the guard. Girls should be, at least, scrubbing the floors or something. But there was no one.

My eyes flickered to the doors. The kitchen. The dressing rooms. The Closet. I kicked that door open, knife at the ready, but there was no one there. Another door. I couldn't remember what this one was to. I opened it silently, again ready to run my way out (or at least enter the other reality, where I stood more of a chance), but there was nothing. Nothing but a blonde girl in a blue v-neck shirt staring at a wall. _Baby Doll. _

"Baby Doll!" I said quietly, still not wanting to alert the guards I kept expecting to form from nowhere. "I've come to bust you out."

"An honorable quest, Sweet Pea," drawled a woman's voice from behind me. Gorski. "Your friend is gone. But you already know that, don't you?"

I turned. She didn't have a gun or anything. If I brought her to the other reality, she wouldn't stand a chance. She probably didn't right now. "Please, Madame Gorski, I just want to know that our whole escaping quest wasn't in vain."

She actually looked confused. "Wouldn't your coming back make it be in vain?" She asked. Damn. She had a point.

I drew my knife, perfectly prepared to drag her to our other world if I had to. She held up her hands. "Go ahead. Try to bring your friend back. We've already tried. Have fun." I waited for her to move. She didn't. I turned back to the girl, the shell of the Baby Doll I had known. I glanced back at Gorski. She hadn't moved. She was watching me with interest, actually. I looked Gorski over again, and decided she couldn't be hiding a weapon.

Again, I turned back to Baby Doll. She was staring at the wall. She didn't react, didn't really even look at me when I walked up to her. "Baby Doll…" I said, resisting the urge to turn and scream and throw a fit at Madame Gorski. I let myself give her a good, steady glare though over Baby Doll's head. Her hair was still in pigtails. Her eyes were dull and flat, lifeless. She registered I was there, though. But there was no flash of recognition, no sudden blaze of desire for her to escape. Just dullness, lifelessness.

"Go away," I said to the woman behind my back.

"No." Came the simple answer.

I decided arguing wasn't the way to go. "Then you better not pull a knife on me while I work. But then again, if you do, you don't stand a chance." Not that she could see it, but I smiled my best evil smile. Then I grabbed Baby's hand and shut my eyes, entering our other reality, our other world.

Baby Doll was looking up at the sky, where snow was falling, spinning around slowly. "Is it actually you?" I asked her, afraid I wouldn't get an answer.

That's when she turned and looked at me. If you didn't look close enough, you saw nothing wrong with her, just Baby Doll. But when you looked in her eyes, you saw the struggle that was going on. "I… I don't know. It's easier to fight, but…." She got a blank look on her face for a moment, then shook her head, coming back to it.

Then the instructor was there. Our Wise Man. "Tell me what you wish, Sweet Pea, and I will help you get it."

With no hesitation, I said, "I need Baby Doll back into full gear, both worlds. Not just this one."

He nods. "To do that, you'll need the missing pieces of her mind back. All the things that led up to her losing them."

I thought about that. I don't know why he couldn't just give us a straight answer. Baby Doll whispered, "You mean, like, Amber, Rocket, Blondie, my mom and dad, and my sister?"

He nodded. "That is precisely what I mean."

"And what do we do when we get all of them back?" I asked. I won't pretend I didn't flinch when Baby Doll said Rocket's name.

"That's a mystery, Sweet Pea. But this isn't just about Baby Doll. You have to overcome an obstacle within yourself." Gee, I wonder when that will be? Not at all when we have to rescue Rocket, I bet.

Baby Doll got that blank look on her face again. She shut her eyes tight, and then looked at us with a gaze full of pain.

"Oh, and Baby Doll?" Our instructor said. "The more of your mind we get back, the easier the going is for you." An obvious look of relief washed over her face.

Then he said, in words familiar to both of us, "Your weapons are here. The moment you take them, is the moment your journey begins. You have all the weapons you need. Now fight." Then he put a case down on the snowy ground and walked away. Knowing it was be useless to follow him, Baby Doll and I shared a look and nodded. We were going to get the real Baby Doll back.


	3. Chapter 3

**It's shocking how many alerts and favorites this story has received, only three chapters (now) in. [Reviews make my day. FYI. And - short chapter is short. I have longer ones in the future, I promise.]**

**If you follow some of my other stuff, I'm honestly in no state of mind to update anything else. This I'd worked ahead on (actually, I have quite a few more chapters done already), so I can just upload it. The others... well, I just can't update. Maybe I'll be able to force an explanation out of me in the future, but not right now.**

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><p>First, though, we had to fight something, right? Just going in after the pieces of Baby's mind automatically would be too easy. A giant metal statue I hadn't noticed before came to life and decided to try and squash Baby Doll. She rolled out of the way just in time.<p>

Feeling extremely out of practice, I kicked the case of weapons open and tossed a long sword (a lot like the one she used last time) to Baby Doll. She caught it, a grim look of determination on her face. I grabbed the shot gun - my favorite, though I wasn't sure what we could do against this giant hunk of metal.

We looked at each other, and nodded, each taking one side. The robot turned toward Baby Doll. I shot it in the back of the head. Get this - the bullet made a hole in it.

Despite seeing the ugly bronze thing turn towards me, I grinned. At least we could do something to it.

It was fast. It picked me up and threw me. Thankfully, it didn't manage to throw me very far, because Baby Doll chose that moment to stab it in its big, ugly foot.

"This is useless!" She cried out to me. We were getting tired. Being out of practice, one of us missing half her mind, we were kind of exhausted already, just darting in, getting a blow in, and having to run away again.

"Agreed!" I called back, eyeing the weapon case, which was closer to me.

I ran to it, jumping over the giant's fist that had been meant for me at the last second. I grabbed the grenade launcher and fired it once. Twice. Three times. The metal giant was going down.

It went down. Baby Doll and I looked at each other and smiled. The fight was on.

Baby Doll stepped around the remains and came over to me. She grabbed my hand. "Take us back."

I looked at her, probably the picture of confusion. She rolled her eyes. "Sweet Pea, you can't trust Gorski to let us alone in here for that long. They're… awful. I can't do anything back in the other world. My mind is fighting a battle against itself. And my side's losing desperately."

I squeezed her hand. "That's what we're going to fix." With a smile, I yanked us back into reality.

_._


	4. Chapter 4

**You guys... are awesome. There is 11 favorites on this and 14 alerts. Sadly, I don't think this short chapter lives up to your awesomeness, but let me tell ya, there is a LONG one after this (I'm not done writing in yet, even), and a lot of work has gone into the next one. Just consider this a... filler?**

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><p>And just in time. Madame Gorski was walking towards me quietly. Sneaking. I turned around, yanking my switchblade out of my boot. I advanced on her. "Listen here," I snarled, remembering she had been -and maybe still was- in league with the people who had murdered my sister. "You leave us alone. As soon as Baby Doll's capable of thinking for herself, we're out of here. If you try and stop us, you will die."<p>

She smiled. "How does that make you any better than the man that killed your sister?"

"I'd be killing _because _you creeps killed her. Not for no reason." I snapped back. Then I looked closer at the room Baby Doll was in. It was cold. There was the wooden chair Baby was on, a couple leaky pipes on the white walls. That was it. "I'm pulling the strings here, Gorski. We're moving to a better room. With at least one bed. A room that doesn't feel like an icebox. A room where I won't have to deal with worrying about you creeps busting in and killing us. Can you give us such a place, or must I bust her out now?"

She considered. I was half hoping she'd say no, there wasn't a place around here. But she nodded. "You can have your own room. Your old room. It's been, ah, rather empty since your plot." There it was. The overwhelming sense of dread, slamming into me. The knife I'd been holding steady wavered slightly. It was enough to make Gorski smile.

I stood Baby Doll up after glaring Gorski down for a while. She stood up willing enough, walked along, but there was no sense of urgency, of desperation. She really was gone. I didn't break down like I really wanted to, knowing I was all alone, if only because of the creeps that were probably lurking around.

Our old room. Truth be told, I was kind of relieved to be back there. Some sense of familiarity. My old bed was occupied. Baby Doll's was not, neither was Rocket's, so I sat down on hers after leading Baby Doll to her old bed. No looking around, trying to get a feel of the place, she just stared straight ahead.

"Damn it, Baby Doll," I said, completely ignoring the other girls who probably did have mental disabilities, "what did they do to you?"


	5. Chapter 5

**Sorry I haven't updated in a while. Some... well, crap came up. If you're sensitive to swears, get over it. I love curse words. And crap is not one. :) **

**Uh... this was kind of hard for me to write. Plus, I'm tired. School's out Friday, thank God.**

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><p>During the night, I glanced around. On one side of me, Baby Doll was lying down, and I wasn't sure if she was asleep or not. On the other, there was a dark haired girl in my old bed, pitching about restlessly, flipping over onto her side again and again, but as far as I could tell, she was still asleep.<p>

There was no way I'd get any sleep, so I was sitting, back against the headboard, knees drawn up to my chest, arms around my knees. I glanced over at Baby Doll again, saw her eyes wide open. "Ah, screw it," I muttered.

Reaching over for her hand, I grasped it, then yanked us back over to the other reality.

Intense heat.

That's what I registered first, and instinctively drew my hands up to block out the bright light.

We were in a helicopter. One that no one was piloting.

"Damn it!" I all but hissed, then slid into the pilot's seat. The problem? I had no clue how to pilot a helicopter. That was always Amber's job. Every other time I'd been on the ground with Baby Doll and Rocket.

I yanked a control stick towards me, and miraculously, the thing steadied out. Baby Doll still had a blank look on her face.

I looked for something small I could throw at her, but I didn't find anything. So I settled for keeping the helicopter going in circles as best I could, and surveyed the land below me. It was a wall of fire. Or, that's what it looked like at first glance, anyway.

Then I realized there were little paths through the fire. My heart sunk. It was a maze. Sure, I might have the animal instinct for survival, but I definitely don't have an animal's sense of direction. Or good sense, really.

Upon closer inspection, it appeared there was a big iron cage smack in the middle of the maze. That's where I bet whatever part of Baby's mind we'd be getting was.

So I positioned the helicopter right above the cage, and let my grip on the control stick loose. We plunged immediately, but we were flung back up almost as soon.

So we'd actually have to go through the maze. Damn.

By then I figured I could just leave the controls like that, and the force field would keep us from crashing or something.

I looked around. There. Parachutes.

I snapped my fingers in front of Baby Doll's blank face. "C'mon, Miss Doll," I said, "We have to get down there." I fastened the pack around my shoulders.

Baby's eyes focused on me. "Welcome back, sweetheart," I said, grinning, then threw a parachute pack at her. She caught it, eyes wide.

She squidged her eyes shut for a moment, then put the thing on. "Any idea who?" She asked me.

"Well, if they went by order killed, I'm betting Blondie. If we're getting them by how you valued the person, I have no idea, maybe Amber?"

She shrugged. "Blondie got us caught. She has little value to me anyway."

I nod. "She probably has as much value to you as the cook does for me." With that, I leap out of the helicopter, tears stinging my eyes.

I landed on the force field, bending my knees slightly so I definitely wouldn't injure myself, even with the parachute.

Baby Doll kind of lands on her heels, and ends up using the parachute as a kind of slide down the domed force field. She slid down it on her butt, like a little kid in a park. Which, given her current state of mind, probably isn't that big of an exaggeration.

I land, not very gracefully, still trying to remember how everything is more intense in this world. My feet leave little cracks in the earth.

Baby Doll uses her feet somehow to launch off the force field and land next to me, feet making little dents in the ground. Lobotomized or not, she's the most used in this world. This reality.

We ditch the parachutes on the ground, and look at the semi-transparent force field in front of us, that tints everything inside slightly purple. I don't see a break in it, anywhere. "What've you got for weapons?" I ask Baby Doll suddenly, wondering if we'd have to beat the thing down.

"Sword, little pistol, throwing knife." She says, checking the holsters around her back and waist. "You?" She asks, seeming more focused now that we're actually faced with a problem.

"Air rifle," I say immediately, then checked the holster on my back. From it I pulled pretty much the coolest sword I've ever seen. It's handle was black with a little white flame design on it. Then there was cold steel. From this sprouted two little jagged steel blades, with a big blade inbetween, its ends a little jagged.

"Wow," Baby says, looking at the sword.

"Agreed," I tell her. I don't usually get the swords, the older weapons. Baby Doll's the best with a sword, no question about it. I usually get the more modern things; rifles, other kinds of guns…. It all depends.

Our instructor's voice echoes faintly through the air. "Oh, and try to work together." His voice whispers in the air. I close my eyes for a moment. Our first mission, our first quest at escaping. With Rocket, Blondie… Amber. All of them gone.

I open my eyes. "That bastard." I ground out, not sure if I'm thinking about Blue or our trainer. "Let's go," I tell Baby. She looks at me for a long moment. Then she blinks, as if I've startled her or something.

"Okay," She says, "But where to?"

"God, I don't know. Killing Blue sounds pretty nice right now. But this is your world, isn't it? You control it. You figure it out. I'm sick of being the leader." I turn away, lean my face right against the force field.

Rocket. I miss Rocket. I want her back. Despite all my efforts to keep her safe, she died in my arms. She died to save me. _That damn train. _

Then I look more at what's in front of me, rather than focusing on the memories coursing through my head. From right in front of me, the force field is… pulsing. Little waves come out of it, and course through the rest. But this is the only spot where you can see them. _The chink in the armor. _

"Baby," I say, not turning around. "Baby, I figured it out."

No response. I turn around. I don't see her immediately. She's way off to the side, just standing there. She's losing the battle again. I go over and lead her back to where I was, my eyes knowing what to look for now. I snap my fingers in front of her nose. For now, it works.

She blinks. "What?"

"Stand back and give me the throwing knife." I back up a considerable distance, almost to a tree line, and pray I don't miss. I make Baby Doll duck on the ground behind me.

I hold the knife in my hand, my fingers running over the smooth wood that the handle is made of for a moment. Then I focus on my target, and throw the knife as hard as I can. Of course, I forgot this reality is so much more intense than the real one. The knife is in the chink in no time flat. There's silence for maybe a second. Then I am flying back into a tree because of an explosion.

This being an unreal reality, neither of us are seriously hurt. My arm is trickling blood, Baby Doll's blonde hair is slightly singed.

But… we're in. One step closer to getting Baby Doll back.


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